1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technical field of supplying a treatment solution from a nozzle to the front surface of a substrate to perform solution treatment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the photolithography process in a semiconductor manufacture, a coating and developing apparatus is used which performs a series of treatments for coating and developing the resist. In the resist coating unit arranged in this apparatus, a plurality of treatment solution nozzles assigned to the respective kinds of resist solutions being treatment solutions are provided, and a nozzle discharging the treatment solution according to the kind of the substrate is selected and used. Further, there is a known structure in which a plurality of solution treatment modules in each of which a spin chuck is disposed inside a cup are arranged side by side in the horizontal direction and a plurality of treatment solution nozzles are gathered to be shared between the plurality of solution treatment modules.
There also is a known coating and developing apparatus including an inspection unit performing inspection of the substrate, in which case after a resist film is formed, inspection is performed on the substrate before exposure, and when it is defective, the operation of the resist coating unit which has performed the treatment on the substrate is stopped and maintenance thereof is performed. When a plurality of resist coating units are arranged, other resist coating units other than the coating unit under maintenance are used, but the treatment efficiency decreases by one resist coating unit. Further, substrates located upstream of the resist coating unit are sometimes collected without being subjected to subsequent treatments depending on their positions, and substrates which have been subjected to rework treatment, for example, on which an anti-reflection film has been already formed are subjected to removal treatment of the anti-reflection film using a treatment solution.
A technique of achieving a high throughput is described about a solution treatment apparatus in which a plurality of solution treatment modules are provided and nozzle parts discharging treatment solutions to the respective modules are shared in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-72016, but is different from the present invention.